Awareness!

Awareness is what we need in today's society's, and we need it at an earlier age!

We are now facing one of the biggest threats human beings have ever faced, global warming. 

World leaders have been aware of this problem for several decades already, and billions of dollars have been spent on defeating it. But results are hard to find, and people don't really seems to care. 

Environmental problems is just placed in the background, growing silent, like a tumor.

If we want social justice and social sustainability in the future we need to educate people and give them the awareness they need. People have the right to be aware of environmental racism, toxic waste, they have the right to be aware of racial privileges and how the government turns down programs for environmental good. But somehow people don't care, and it seems that some people don't even know or choose not to believe in these crises.

One of my first thoughts after participating the social justice and social sustainability class was how desperately our society needs this awareness.

As I mention in class, we need to get this awareness to the kids. Social justice and social sustainability should be a class in elementary school! If we want the next generation to deal with these problems, then we need to let them know, the kids need to be aware. All of these social and environmental problems is a fact, and they need to be taken out of the shadow and into the spot light. If we want something drastic to happened in the future we need to let the future generation be aware. 

Reaching Tipping Point? Climate Change and Poverty in Tajikistan.

This is a classic example on how some innocent countries and community’s ends up as victims of global warming. Countries as Tajikistan haven't done much to contribute to global warming, but still they are getting some of the biggest impacts.
Tajikistan many glaciers are melting away, and temperatures are rising slowly but surely; "The IPCC (2007) predicts that up to 1.2 billion people across Asia will experience increased water stress by the 2020s. Central Asia is a region that is already water stressed and climate change will exacerbate this in a number of ways
beyond reduced precipitation." (p.14)

"Climate change is an international injustice. Poor countries such as Tajikistan that have 

done the least to cause current global warming and consequent climate change are the first to 

begin to suffer the impacts." (p.21)

How can countries like Tajikistan defend themselves against climate change, especially when we just continue to “attack” them with emissions?

The Death of Environmentalism

Over the past decades, world leaders have tried to prevent environmental problems such as global warming. Billions of dollars have been spent on environmental problems, but results can barely be seen. This article brings up some interesting questions, like what we consider environmental?

There is a lot of information in this article that I've never heard before, and it brings up some new themes and issues that I found interesting;

"Why, for instance, is a human-made phenomenon like global warming — which may kill hundreds of millions of human beings over the next century — considered “environmental”? Why are poverty and war not considered environmental problems while global warming is?" (p.12)

It was shocking to read about how several good environmental suggestions were closed down or delayed in the nineties; "Tragically, had Bryan and environmentalists succeeded in 1991, they would have dramatically slowed the rise of SUVs in the coming decade and reduced the pressure on the Refuge — a patch of wilderness that the Republicans again used to smack around environmentalists under President George W. Bush." (p.18)

The article also provides a good insight on how complicated and complex these environmental problems are;

"The challenge for American environmentalists is not just to get the US to dramatically overhaul its energy strategy but also to help developing countries like China, India, Russia and South Africa do so as well."

"Environmentalists weren’t thinking about what we get out of each defeat. We were only thinking about what we get out of them if they succeed."

Social Justice and Sustainability.

It's exciting to see how class differences in ambulatory cities such as Berlin begins to flourish again.
And how political property destruction is being used as protest. Seems like class difference is becoming a problem not only in suppressed countries, but also in rich sustainable countries. "As natural resources themselves, rather than the capital to extract them, become a major limiting factor in the world, one person’s gain is more closely correlated with another’s loss."

It's also interesting how they explain brutal regimes in the article, and how; “In the long run, great inequality can only be maintained by brutal regimes that crush the expression of dissent and keep the population in fear or cringing respect”. With today's technology and consumerism, people all over the world now have access to phones with both video cameras and internet. This have given people in suppressed countries with brutal regimes a new opportunity and a chance to be heard. Just look at whats happening in the middle east right now! I guess there is a dilemma with consumerism, bad for the environment, but good for social justice.

"Finding ways to combine a relatively free market economy with greater equality is one of the dominant challenges of our times."

Gro Harlem Brundtland was the prime minister in Norway when I grew up, so it was cool that she was included in this article. The Brundtland Commission is doing a great job for sustainability, and will hopefully continue their much needed work. "Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

 

White Privilege: "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" By Peggy McIntosh

This article was startling to read, the author makes some good points and they are all true. The white race still have certain advantages in today's society and in some twisted way, we have manage to hide it from our self (the white race). “I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege.”(p.1) It's both sad and disturbing to know that kids are being raised in a society where they are taught not to recognize white privilege or racism if you prefer. How can we ever achive social justice if our children is raised in a society were rasism is hidden in our unconscious.

"What will we do with such knowledge? As we know from watching men, it is an open question whether

we will choose to use unearned advantage to weaken hidden systems of advantage and whether we will

use any of our arbitrarily-awarded power to reconstruct power systems on a broader base."(p.4)